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GUESTS: bell hooks and Amalia Mesa Bains, co-authors of “”Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism”

Today we spend the morning with two well known cultural critics: bell hooks and Amalia Mesa Bains on their new book, “Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism.”

bell hooks is the acclaimed feminist writer who has written extensively about the interconnectivity of race, class, and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and domination. She rose to prominence in 1981 with the publication of her first major work, “Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism.” Since then her work has evolved to include issues of love and relationships with, “All About Love: New Visions (the bell hooks Love Trilogy). She has lectured at Yale University, Oberlin, and City College of New York. She now teaches at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky.

Amalia Mesa Bains is an award winning artist, scholar, curator, and writer who has been involved in the Chicano artist movement since the 1960s. She has written extensively on Chicano art and culture. In 1992 she won the Distinguished MacArthur Fellowship. She has served as a consultant for the Texas State Council on the Arts and the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and is a former Commissioner of Arts for the City of San Francisco. She is the author of Ceremony of Spirit: Nature and Memory in Contemporary Latino Art.

In a new book called “Homegrown,” bell hooks and Amalia Mesa Bains challenge the contemporary efforts of mainstream media to polarize African Americans and Latinos, emphasizing differences in culture, religion, and values. Hook and Mesa-Bains try to challenge this politically popular binary through conversations about their work, families, and cultural experiences have shaped their political activism, teaching, and artistic expression. I had the pleasure recently of conducting an exclusive first interview with these two writers on their new book.